


Bride of Kernow

by compassrose



Category: Arthurian Mythology & Related Fandoms, Tristan & Isolde (2006)
Genre: Brothers being Awesome, Celtic Twilight, Dark Ages, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/M, I can't plot my way out of a wet paper bag and you can tell, Manpain, Medieval Britain, Women Being Awesome, definitely way more awesome than their husbands
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-03-01
Updated: 2007-03-01
Packaged: 2019-08-14 18:23:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16497854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/compassrose/pseuds/compassrose
Summary: At that moment, I saw that he held out his left hand — that the right was a crude thing shaped of metal. My eyes fixed on it and I tore them away, finding there was nowhere else to look but his ice-green eyes blasting me with frost, in a pale hard face like a shield of bone, black hair shorn close in the old Roman way. “Yes,” I said, “I mean no. I mean, he is my brother. My lord.”





	Bride of Kernow

**Author's Note:**

> In 2006 I saw the entertainingly medieval-knitwear-heavy Tristan and Isolde, and my experience was not improved by the fact that given a choice between pre-Botox Rufus Sewell and James Franco of all people, you couldn't PAY me to take Franco.
> 
> I got extremely obsessed with this, regularly driving 30 minutes to a neighbouring university with a Celtic Studies program to do deep dives into Dark Ages Welsh marriage practices and kinship law. (I was sublimating the inevitable end of a longterm relationship, which happened shortly thereafter.) Anyway, I've forgotten all of it now, and who knows where all those reams of notes have got to. The result is based partly on the movie, partly on a murky bath of Celtic history/legend as retained by my brain, and partly on the irritating story of Geraint, Suspicious Asshole, and Enid, who make cameo appearances here.
> 
> I apologise in advance for the names. I didn't go full Brythonic, but it's bad enough. Kernow is the old name for Cornwall. March is pronounced Mark. Iwerddon is the old (Welsh) name for Ireland. The Saes are the Saxons.

My mother told me first. She found me curled in the high window under the roof of the house, looking out into the rain. She embraced me and kissed me, laughing and weeping at the same time.

“I hope you will be happy, little wren,” she said. Her mouth trembled. “He is a fine match — but so far away!” And she kissed me again. I knew what she meant. My father had asked me after he returned from the south whether I would be willing to be married. And then messengers from Caer Duor had come and gone and come again and were here now, to take, I supposed, my father’s final answer.

I was to be the glue to seal my father’s alliance with the lord March ap Meirchion of Kernow, who was, my brother Kelyn told me maliciously at supper, old, and crippled, and a widower.

My mother hushed him indignantly. “The lord March,” she said, “has driven back both the Iwerydd and the Saes in battle, and he is one of the sea-defenders of Prydein, and he is known everywhere as a noble man.”

Kelyn laughed. “Oh, Mother!” he said. “That, yes, but you know he's sung of as something quite different.”

My mother’s mouth thinned. Even my brothers, grown up and warriors as they were, didn’t argue with her when she had that expression on her face. “Shut your mouth, Kelyn bach,” she said. “I’ll not have that slander spoken here before Tancogestla.”

“Oh, well,” Kelyn said, “she’ll hear it herself soon enough.” Mother glared at him, and stroked my hair.

The lord March would not be coming to claim me. He sent instead another band of messengers, and with them a ring of gold for me to signify the promise, and formally there in my father’s hall, before my family and the lord March’s men, the ring was put on my finger. It was settled that in a month’s time I would journey to Kernow.

My father was very gentle with me those weeks before I left. He gave me things, a necklace and bracelets of chased gold, a small hawk, patting my head as though I was still the little girl who followed him and rode pillion on his horse whenever I was allowed. I felt like that little girl in truth. Always had I been indulgently treated, the youngest child of my parents’ age, and now they would send me away to be married.

I did not like to think of that. Married. To an old man, who had been married before. Maybe his first wife had died in childbirth. Such things happened often, and I knew it. My father had not dwelt upon it when he told me.

He had sighed at first, clearly uncertain where to begin, looking at me keenly out of his dark eyes. “I have made treaty with March son of Meirchion of Kernow. He seeks another wife and sons to be his heirs after him. Will you go and be my brave wren, in the south by the sea? You will need to be both brave and honourable, for you will be like one of the warriors of Pengwern, there to uphold the friendship between us.”  
He made it sound solemn and grave.

“Will it be so hard?” I whispered.

“I hope not,” my father said. “All speak highly of March, as a warlord and as their lord. All that I have seen of him in council leads me to think he is both fairminded and wise. I think he will be as kind and even-handed with a wife.” He smiled at me and squeezed my shoulder. “Don’t look so sad. Women are meant to marry, and men too, and he is a king.”

I did not want, then, to ask about his age or anything else. My father had tried to be reassuring, but I saw regret in his face.

My brothers all came back to Caer Guricon to be my escort, my father having sent messages out to the forts and defences where they were. Three brothers had I, and I the youngest child: Kelyn, who stayed at home and was my father’s lieutenant; Morfael called Goch the Red for his hair, whom I had always trusted to defend me against the others; and Elfan the eldest, called Sharp-Eye, whom I hardly knew, he having left long before to serve at the court of Owain Dhu. In the meantime, my mother Gwenllian and I and all the ladies of the court had been hard at work sewing my wedding clothes.  
I had a carved wooden chest, to which as soon as I learned needlecraft I had been adding the pieces of my dowry: embroidered undergowns and sheets, neckpieces and trims and head-dresses. To this my wedding gown would be added. My mother gave me a length of green silk from far-off Rome, traded halfway across the earth. She had kept it for years in her own chest, and it smelled of the scented oils she also kept there and rarely wore. It was worth — not a king’s ransom, perhaps, but certainly if I had ever had the bad fortune to be taken prisoner, that length of silk might be taken in trade for me. Her lady Gwawl measured it out against me and cut it, for Gwawl had a gift for cutting garments that fit the measure of their wearer, and more, suited them.

That was good. Sometimes, thinking of my marriage and of this unknown king I would be sent to, I would steal into my parents’ room and peer into my mother’s mirror of polished metal. What of me? Was I worth this treaty? I did not think so. There were pretty women enough in my father’s house, and my mother had been accounted beautiful when she was young — Kelyn and Elfan had her looks, and Morfael her red locks, and I well knew that many of the unmarried girls sighed over Kelyn's bright eyes and sloping cheekbones.

But my mother’s mirror showed too plainly that I looked not like my mother but like my father, a narrow pale face and black angled brows, dark eyes, dark hair. Sometimes, it was true, young spearmen of my father’s teulu would tease me or tug my hair, or dance with me at festivals — but never had any of them pursued me or sung me englyns of love.

Maybe he would turn me aside and change his mind when he saw me. I could not say to anyone that I hoped for it.

Very quickly came the time when I must leave. My green gown was finished, all the fine stitches of it set by Gwawl, while my mother made the embroidery to edge it and I stitched the fine linen shift to go under it. Red leather shoes had I, too, with gold buckles and embroidery. My father stinted on nothing in my dowry or my furnishings. “You are a princess in your own right,” he said, “and lord March will know that I have pride in you.”

My things were packed into the wagon, and my brothers’ horses saddled, and other wagons loaded with the goods and treasure of the bride price. I stood in the yard of Caer Guricon in a thin rain, looking at the cobbled court I’d known all my life, and the high walls of wood and stone, the familiar hills and trees. Maybe I would never see them again. My mother and my father were there to bid me farewell — I could not weep, and I did not, as my mother hugged me and whispered blessings, and my father took me in his arms, and let me go reluctantly. I wept silently in the wagon as we creaked away from the gates, and Gwawl, sent to be my handmaiden in Caer Duor, gave me a cloth to wipe my eyes.

I couldn’t cry all the way to Kernow, of course. The next day the weather was fair, and Morfael rode up beside the wagon after we left the house of my father’s man where we had stayed.

“Will you ride, little sister?” he said.

Gwawl frowned. “You are too old for such things,” she said, “and you, Morfael, should not be tempting her.”

I hesitated. “There will be time enough for you to ride in wagons when you’re a fine married queen,” Morfael said. “It’s beautiful, all the birds out singing, and no one but us to see you.”

I jumped down from the moving wagon, and he held out his hand so that I might set my foot against his stirrup and sit before him. My brother Morfael and I — we talked all that day as we rode, about the birds and about things he had seen serving in the house of Gerren, who was much given to ride about the country, so that my brother had fought all over the mid and south of Prydein.

“Do you know him, my promised husband?” I asked.

“I have met him,” Morfael said. “He is a quiet man, to whom all listen.”

“Will I like it, Kernow?”

Morfael laughed behind me. “Why would you not? It is pretty country, by the sea. And March ap Meirchion is said —” and he broke off, and went on, more stiffly, “to be a very — generous — man.”

I turned in the saddle to see his face. “What do you mean by that, Morfael? Something, I know!”

“Nothing,” Morfael said. And I could get no more from him, and gave up trying.

It was near three weeks ride to the stronghold of March ap Meirchion, even following the still-smooth roads laid down by Rome. We stopped in the houses of those chieftains who were friendly to my father, who had sent riders ahead to tell of our coming. All showed courtesy to us, the escort of a bride, and said rote things of compliment to me, and about my promised husband.

Sometimes I wondered about asking the women of the houses something more — for I did, certainly, begin to feel that there was something in Morfael’s sudden silence, in Kelyn’s mocking comment. I could not think, however, of any tidy way to introduce it into conversation. And usually anyway it was late; we were given sleeping place and food, and we left early in the morning, with little time for chatter.

The weather turned very fine after that first day of rain. Very often now I would ride with one or another of my brothers rather than in the stuffy wagon. Gwawl no longer offered me more than token protest as I sprang down from the boards when we were once out of sight of the latest house we had stayed.

“And if we come on a warband, what then?” she did say sometimes.

“Then I run,” I said, “and I suppose I can run faster if I’m not in a wagon.” She would roll her eyes. “You should, it is so hot in here. My brothers would take you.”

“I am too old for that,” she said, “it isn’t decent. And it’s one thing if it’s your own brothers, quite another if it’s not, and you remember that.”

There were no warbands, though it was a possible thing, especially as we came through the southern portions near the lands of the wild lord Gwynllyw. And if I had been in the wagon I should have had far too much time to brood, especially as the line of the sea began to appear on the horizon towards which we moved. We stayed, that last night, at the house of one of the lord March’s chieftains, and went out into a glorious morning. The bread I’d eaten sat uneasily in my stomach as I sat before my brother Kelyn.

Morfael and Elfan rode up behind us.

“Hah!” said Kelyn behind me. “How do you sit, sister? Shall we race them?”

I tightened my knees about the sides of Kelyn’s great horse and gripped the saddle, and Kelyn gave a mighty battle whoop as our brothers drew near us. His horse was known to be one of the fastest from our father’s herd, and easily we shot forth and down the track. There came shouts from behind; I looked back and saw Elfan and Morfael come out of their surprise and gaining on us.

“Faster!” I gasped to Kelyn, and he urged the horse, laughing, and I laughed, clinging and looking back again to Morfael in the lead and Elfan behind and both of them falling further behind. And laughing, we went through a little stand of trees and then Kelyn reined in so sharply I nearly fell off, and that right beneath the man in a circlet who rode at the head of the small company of richly-dressed warriors with whom we’d so nearly collided.

He stared at me with the coldest look I had ever seen. Appalled, I slid down in a disorder of skirts.

“Lord March ap Meirchion?” I guessed, and hastily bowed.

He must have made some gesture of assent, for Kelyn up on his horse beside me said very formally, “My lord, I present to you Tancogestla ferch Llycat.”

I looked up. His expression had become, if possible, still more forbidding. “Well. Welcome, lady Tancogestla.” He dismounted and held out his hand to me. “Are you in the habit, then, of riding so?”

At that moment, I saw that he held out his left hand — that the right was a crude thing shaped of metal. My eyes fixed on it and I tore them away, finding there was nowhere else to look but his ice-green eyes blasting me with frost, in a pale hard face like a shield of bone, black hair shorn close in the old Roman way. “Yes,” I said, “I mean no. I mean, he is my brother. My lord.” I lifted my hands to arrange my wildly disordered hair, doing no good, and probably worse damage.

Kelyn dismounted then, and bowed as well. “Kelyn am I, youngest son of Llycat. And look, here are Morfael and Elfan, whom you know, I think, my lord. Our company is behind us a little way.”

“So I see. Welcome also. We had word of your coming, and are here to escort you to Caer Duor. You will find all there ready for you.”

“Your hospitality will be kindly taken. We’ve been on the road now many days,” Kelyn said.

I withdrew a way to hide my hot face in looking back for the wagon and the rest of the company while my brothers exchanged courtly nothings with the lord March. They took a long time in arriving, I thought, though truly it could only have been the length of a few verses of song.

When at last they were there, the lord March approached me. “If you are ready, lady Tancogestla, let us go,” he said. He held out his right arm now, to help me into the wagon. I hesitated a moment before taking that metal hand, but anyway, I had felt his critical looks picking me apart all that time I stood there, so that stuffy as the wagon was it would allow me to retreat.

I got in, and let Gwawl berate me and comb me out decently while our mingled companies rearrayed themselves, and we again set forth.

We reached Caer Duor after the sun’s height. It was not as my father’s house, a great stone place of the Romans, but older, carved into a hill, and the earthen ramparts topped with new walls of timber. All round about below were forest and fields, and a cluster of huts at the foot of the hill. Up the road we went, the riders and the creaking wagons, and me looking out apprehensively. At the top, the road turned and wound through the ditch and the earth wall, and then there was a gate of wood standing open, and warriors beside it raising their spears in salute to us and their lord. Within that there was an open place with flimsy wooden roofed shelters where, as I would later know, every week people gathered and traded goods and eggs and livestock.

After that another and greater wall faced us, the gates to that also standing open for our coming. We passed through, and so I came to the stronghold of Caer Duor. I peered out of the wagon as we came about and stopped. Right before me was the greatest building there, a long low house of wood roofed with thatch, the doorposts carved into heavy designs and coloured. There were other buildings all about, workshops and lesser houses, stables and byres. There was no paving even here, only dry earth and here and there grass growing. To my eye, after the house of my father Llycat in Caer Guricon, it looked a sad jumble to hold a king, but I knew even from the places where we had stayed on the journey that it would be considered splendid in its way.

There was a woman standing in the doorway of the house, and she came down to meet me as I came shyly out of the wagon.

“Welcome to Caer Duor, Tancogestla,” she said. “I am Bleuzuen, sister to March.” There was no mistaking that; she looked like her brother, white-skinned and high-boned and the same pale-green measuring eyes, with streaks of silver in her black braids. I greeted her and gave her the kiss of peace.

“Honour to the lady of the house,” I said. She too seemed to be looking at me the way her brother did, as though I were a spoiled apple and she sought for the patch of rot. There was a great flurry now, as all dismounted and the bondsmen came to move the wagons; a man went over to them and began to investigate the contents (he was Bracan, the steward of Caer Duor).

My brothers likewise approached the lady Bleuzuen, and wished her honour as was proper.

“We are laying a feast in your honour,” she said, “and meanwhile, perhaps you would wish to go into the guesthouse to bathe and refresh yourselves? Lady Tancogestla, come with me. It is my brother’s wish that you sleep in my chamber until the marriage-feast.”

I went with her, and Gwawl with me.

We went into the great doors of the hall. It was pillared down its length with massive trunks, all carved and painted like the doorposts; the couches of the warriors sat about the hearth. At one end was a raised platform, and behind that stairs that went up, and two doors on either side; it was there that she took me, and through one of the doors. Within, an outer chamber, and a curtained inner one; this was the lady Bleuzuen’s place.

Later, after I had bathed and Gwawl had helped me dress in clothes that weren’t crushed and covered in road dust, the lady Bleuzuen returned to bring me down into the hall.

There was already a noise below, the fire blazing and the warriors of the lord March’s teulu loudly talking around it; women on the benches along the walls talking likewise. The lord March sat upon the platform, my brothers with him and some other men, and two bards there as well, one old, one young, though they were not playing and I only knew them by their harps.

There were two empty seats upon that platform, and the lady Bleuzuen took me there. My place was by the seat of the lord March, for I wore his ring, I was already betrothed. When I sat, those in the hall cheered me, but the lord March only glanced me up and down so I felt at once plain and small, despite my gown of red linen and the gold neckpiece and bracelets my father had given me.

“Be welcome to your house,” he said at last, as though the words choked him. And when the bondsmen came with the food, he served me according to custom, but the meat and bread then choked me, and I could scarcely eat.

The lady Bleuzuen said, looking at my untouched plate, “It is not to your liking? Is there anything else we can give you?”

“No, it is good,” I said unhappily. “It is very good. I am only tired.”

“Yes,” said she, “of course. Brother, may the lady Tancogestla have your leave to go to bed?”

He frowned at me, again. “Yes, you may go,” he said. “A good night to you.”

“And to you, my lord,” I said. I bade my brothers a good night as well, and followed the lady Bleuzuen back up the stairs, where Gwawl again disrobed me, and Bleuzuen left me to go back again to the hall, and I lay in the cold bed and shivered until I slept.

I half-wakened to the sound of murmured women’s voices in the antechamber.

“You have put the girl in your chambers then?” said one.

“Yes, my brother would have it so,” said — Bleuzuen, then.

A soft laugh. “Poor child. Well, _she_ is no great beauty.”

Bleuzuen, tartly, “And that is to the good. She is passable enough, and will not shame us.”

“One will hope.”

“Her brothers seem a noble lot...” Bleuzuen paused. “I hope he will bend. He should not have taken another bride, I think, save that the chiefs pressed him to.”

The other woman laughed again. “Afraid, is he?”

“Certainly not. But rest assured that will not happen again, he will see to it.”

Footsteps. I was wide awake now, gazing open-eyed into darkness and thinking of the cold, cold eyes of my promised husband, and of a prison without bars. Bleuzuen came in and slipped into the bed beside me, though she said nothing, thinking me asleep.

I did sleep again at last, and had confused dreams about being kept in a cellar — or were those other women in the cellar? When I woke the next day, I could not remember at first where I was; there was someone else sleeping beside me. Was I married already? Then I saw that it was Bleuzuen, of course. I was in her bed by the orders of the lord March.

I lay very quietly, fearing to wake her. Light came in around the edges of the hanging in the narrow window, light and cold sea air. It seemed a long time before she finally moved and yawned and sat up.

She blinked at me, remembering herself, I suppose, who I was. “Did you sleep well?” she asked.

“Yes, thank you, my lady.”

“Good. Your handmaiden sleeps without. Let us get you dressed, and you may see the house that will be yours.” There was a certain malice in her face.

“My lady, surely you are the mistress of this house?”

She looked at me sidelong. “Not if my brother takes a wife.”

“I am not... accustomed to run a household,” I said. I felt more unhappy, even, than I had the day before. If March’s sister were to make me her enemy, then I was woefully underequipped for the fight. “And I’m sure I cannot do so as well as you. It is your house.”

“Well,” she said. “Well. You will learn, I’m sure.” And perhaps, was that the slightest unbending of her mouth?

I went out into the outer chamber and Gwawl helped me to dress, and was plaiting up the front of my hair when there came a knock at the door. She opened it and the lord March ap Meirchion came in.

He was rather more splendidly dressed than the day before, but looked no less grim.

“You slept well,” he said.

“Yes,” said I, “thank you, my lord.” His eyes, glass-hard, found me wanting.

“The marriage-feast begins tomorrow, so that you may rest from the journey.”

I said nothing.

“Well?”

“At your will, my lord,” I said to my lap.

“And who is this?”

“She is Gwawl, sent to be my handmaiden by courtesy of my father.”

“You will need no handmaiden. There are women enough here in Caer Duor. She will ride back with your brothers’ company.”

“My lord,” said Gwawl indignantly, “that is part of my lady’s bride-price, that she be suitably attended!”

He turned the searing look on her. “She will be attended,” he said. “You will return to Caer Guricon. As I said. My lady Tancogestla, I will see you at the marriage-feast tomorrow.” And he left us.

Gwawl was almost beyond words with indignation, though she found words enough when she tried. As for me, no words could have expressed what I felt.

The day passed slowly, and finished with another dreadful meal, one that I could not plead weariness to escape, so that I sat and sat and tried to make myself invisible to the passing edge of the lord March’s eyes. I thought of trying to speak to him, something other than the ever-quieter ‘yes my lords’ and ‘no my lords’ that seemed all that would come out of my mouth — but there was something in his face when he looked at me, something barred and locked, that stopped my voice.

I could not understand it. He spoke easily and comfortably enough with my brothers, but to me, only that cold forced courtesy that already made me want to cringe away from every word out of him. Nor did my brothers appear to remark anything strange about it — but it might have been they thought me timid, unused as I was to my new — home.

After the bards had played some little while, the lady Bleuzuen rose, and said, blessedly, “Tomorrow is the wedding feast; it will be a long day. Do you wish to sleep now, lady Tancogestla?”

“By your leave, my lord,” I said, and again retired, and slept very badly indeed.

The next morning began with a ceremonial bath. I was then dressed in the green silk dress and the red leather shoes. Upon my head, a net of gold beads and leaves that my mother had worn for her own wedding; about my neck the golden neckpiece; around my wrists golden bracelets. Gwawl nodded her approval.

“You make a lovely bride,” she said. “Bless you, and may you be happy.”

“I hope so,” I said, though I was feeling very uncertain about that. And I went into the hall, where my bridegroom waited, similarly splendid. I tried a smile at him, but it was met with such an unmoving face that it died upon my mouth. He looked as though he would rather be doing anything at all, other than marry me. But he bowed and greeted me, and gave me another gift of a golden brooch, which I fastened to my dress. I thanked him, and we went on.

There was the marriage before all the teulu, and my brothers gave me to him in the ancient fashion while he received me with hand and kiss, and then there was an interval, and much eating and drinking, and after that the priest of the White Christ witnessed our promise to each other. Then there was still further eating and drinking, and me sitting at his side with a headache quietly growing, and him saying not a word to me while all in the house grew steadily drunker.

The bards paused for air, and others took up instruments, whistles and drums, and played a dancing tune. Cries went up for us to dance, and the lord March’s mouth took on a hard set. At last, he said, “Will you consent to dance with me?”

I love to dance, very much.

“At your will, my lord,” I said.

I stumbled, descending to the floor, thinking of how much he clearly did not wish to dance. But he did credibly enough, taking me through the spins and turns, and then there was chaos. In the bridal dance, all seek to dance with the bride, for the fortune she brings. And so all the young men of the teulu, faces shining with mead and wine, pulled me from the lord March, and spun me about one to the other.

At each turn, I found my lord’s eyes upon me, and a growing wintry wrath in them, until I stumbled again. Whereupon and instantly he took my arm and brought me away and back to the platform, saying, “That is enough of dancing, I think.”

I caught a couple of meaningful glances, between those left behind.

I had no time to think about it, however. For now the women came and claimed me and brought me to the inner room of the lord March’s chambers and the great bed there. I had time to see a table laden with papers, chests, a couch, in the outer room, and then they were all undressing me amidst great laughter and dirty jokes. They put me in the bed and shouted out, and then came all the men of the teulu, and the lord March among them, and he too was stripped, and for the first time I was naked in a bed with a man.

“To a long life, and a joyful, and many children!” said a woman I did not yet know, and held out a silver bowl to us. The lord March gestured for me to take it with him, and with both our hands upon it, brought it to my mouth. It was strong wine, and honey, and a powerful mingling of herbs that made me cough — I knew what they must be, herbs of fertility and fortune, but I had not myself tasted a wedding posset before. Then the same to him in turn, until all was drained, and hands took the bowl away, and all the crowd left us alone.

He looked at me, the look of a man faced with a distasteful task that must be done. “Don’t shake so,” he said, “I will not hurt you.” And he put out the lamp.

He did not hurt me, too much, but if he could have accomplished the business without touching me at all I suppose he would have. I never thought a person might be so absent from so intimate a thing.

And after that, he rose, went out of the room and shut the curtain, and left me there astonished and bleeding in the dark.

He returned the next morning, fully dressed, for the witnessing of the cowyll. There is a thing I’m glad I will only have to do once, sit in my shift while the bloodied sheet is held up for all to see. Then I claimed my cowyll, my virgin-price, formally, though of course it had all been set by my kin before. When that was done, the lord March presented me with a collar of gold, very heavy and ancient, and that was my morning gift, worth probably two of me.

That finished, we went down and ate bread and butter and honey, amidst again a chorus of scurrilous jesting.

The honey was sweet, but it was the only thing that was. After, my lord took his leave, and so began my first day as a married woman.

My brothers stayed two more days before they departed for Caer Guricon, and with them Gwawl, who I think had not ceased muttering darkly even in her sleep. I wept to see them go, and then tried to hide my tears from my lord, who saw them with an unmistakable disdain.

From the lady Bleuzuen’s attendants a woman named Onnen was given me. She was white-haired, a grandmother. At first I thought her very severe, but very soon she rather made a pet of me, servant though she was. Then, and for some time, she followed me closer than my own shadow, which I guessed was by the orders either of Bleuzuen or of the lord March.

The first few days I was alone in Caer Duor I spent in a stupor of loneliness and unhappiness. If I spoke to my new husband, it was received with formal words and unspoken contempt, so that I soon avoided ever opening my mouth in his presence. I was a little timid, too, about speaking to the lady Bleuzuen, who thought me plain and probably not worthy of her brother. I knew no one else, and no one seemed to make much gesture to making me truly welcome or comfortable there, though Bleuzuen spent time showing me the ways of the house.

There came a night not long after when I could not bear the thought of again sitting there on the dais desperately trying to swallow some sort of token food (since Bleuzuen appeared to take my lack of appetite as an insult) and pretending I did not mind that my husband, beside me, made his best effort to regard me as an empty chair.

I convinced Onnen of my weariness — not a hard thing, that — and begged her to bring me up some little something from the hall instead. She did. I set a stool under the window of the bedchamber, and the board upon the sill, and I was nibbling there with my chin on my hand when the door opened.  
“My lord!” said Onnen behind me, and I winced a moment, then turned to face him.

“Your place is in the hall beside me,” he said.

“I am tired, my lord,” I said, trying and failing not to cringe like a dog away from his eyes.

“That does not excuse you from your duty to the household.” He glanced at my plain daytime gown. “Dress yourself as is fitting, and come down. You are the lady of Kernow, and you are to sit with your people at supper. Make haste,” he said, and went out.

“Hurry, then, my lady,” Onnen said, as I still sat there despairing in the chair. I stood, and let her put me into the green gown, comb out my hair, hang me about with gold. And then, heavily, I descended the stairs.

The days passed, and the weeks. Every night I sat with my husband in the hall, as I had been commanded. Every day, I trailed Bleuzuen about the business of Caer Duor, and one by one she gave me the keys of the house, so that I began to feel myself not altogether as hopeless a failure as, it seemed, my lord would have it.

One day I found myself, surprisingly, quite alone in the circle of Caer Duor. It was a busy time; we were, all the women, about the greatest part of the year’s weaving. I had been to the kitchen, seeing to the day’s food and also to the boiling of the great kettles of dye. Bleuzuen was not with me, nor Onnen, but in the weaving house already.

It was a magnificent day. The sky was a clear dome of blue. I looked longingly between the open gates. Surely I could come to no harm, I thought, if I walked quickly to, perhaps, the village and back. I had never yet been outside the ramparts of Caer Duor at all since I came.

My heart lifted at the thought. I passed through the gate, greeting the spearmen there. All around me the world opened up without walls. The trees of the wood were richly green, and the flat line of the sea brilliant, only a shade darker than the sky. A hawk circled above me, and I felt as light as that.  
I was very swift; I walked only to the limit of the houses in the village and turned, but even that — even that was enough, and I returned to the stronghold and wove the rest of the day with a happy heart.

The next day was fine again, and deliberately I hurried my morning tasks, to steal for myself those few moments. Once more, I walked out of the gates and down, bade a good morning to those of the lord March’s people I saw, looked longingly at the fields and the forest — only a little further walk away! — and sternly turned myself back. But — free! For that tiny while, alone and free, no one looking at me with silent criticism or resenting my very presence!

We finished the weaving that day, as we had hoped. The dye-vats had been nearly fermented enough when I checked them that morning. Unless the weather changed sharply that night, they would be ready tomorrow.

Dreading the start of that labour, hard and hot and unpleasant as it was, I again thought to take for myself that quick breath of freedom in the morning. And I was walking out betwixt the gate when there came a shout, not loud but deadly.

“Where,” demanded the lord March, “are you going?” I whirled with my heart banging in my throat. What, now? He bore down on me with his face as I had never seen it, pure white with rage; I thought he would seize me or strike me at once.

“Only walking,” I gasped in terror, “my lord.” He did not strike me, almost to my regret — I could then have claimed my honour price, and gone unhindered back to my father.

“Walking!” he shouted, and then he glanced at the fascinated spearmen, clenched his jaw, and said, very terribly quietly, “Tancogestla, come with me.”  
Now, I thought, the blows. Shaking, I followed him. He stopped out of hearing of the warriors at the gate.

“You will not,” he said between his teeth, “go wandering about alone. Ever. You will not go outside the walls without leave. You will behave as a decent woman behaves, and attend to your duties within this house. Do you understand me?”

I would sooner have had blows. I understood him; too well I understood what he thought of me. I could not at all force myself to look into his contemptuous face, but I could not leave this lie where it was. “I have done nothing dishonourable, my lord,” I said, flinching. “I have been within sight of the gate always. I did not think any harm could come of it.”

“You! Did not think any harm!” he said in fury, then took a breath and with visible effort calmed himself. “Where should you be now? My lady.”

“Dyeing,” I whispered. “Today we begin the dyeing, my lord.”

“Then by your leave, I will escort you to the dyeing house.” He took my arm in a close grip, and walked with me, and left me there with a curt wish for a good day.

I had much time to think, as I splashed and stirred in the stinking pots all day. I will not deny that I was both hurt and most bitterly angry. And how I wished that I might condemn him utterly in my mind.

But I could not. My father had not lied, nor had he been deceived in the lord March. I saw it, as he went about the daily things of Caer Duor; I saw it, as I sat silenced beside him in his hall. All the men of his teulu respected him, one-handed though he was, and maybe more because of it. The lords of Prydein travelled long distances to seek counsel with him, and he held an understanding of the troubles and concerns and alliances of a dozen little kingdoms. If there was argument, he sat listening and then wound it up with a few considered words and offered thoughtful answers. The people of Kernow came to him as arbiter, knowing they would receive fair judgements, each case according to its merits.

A fair man, a wise and a just — save for me. So there must be something particular he disliked in me, and if that was so, why not say it? And whether or not he disliked me — and I knew I was a wife of necessity, so there was no helping if he did — might he not, at the very least, consider that I did the best I could? He would have, I resolved, no cause at all to think evil of me, or of my father either. Reproach me if he would, but it would be through no act of mine.

As to that, I remembered every day my father’s words to me, for I found them more and more true; I thought of myself as a hostage to secure an enemy, always treated with scrupulous honour, never trusted. And so I was scrupulous in my turn, striving in every thing to do what was right, and so avoid as much as I could the whipping looks of the lord March and his miserly words that were so correct and so unkindly meant.

I wished that he would some time rail against me, tell me where my faults lay, reject me, refuse me. He did not. And so I never knew what in me offended him, only that I did, every day.

I thought as the endless summer dragged on that the women of the house perhaps came to have some sympathy for me. They began, at any rate, to give me helpful words about all the myriad things I found were necessary in the managing of a household. I grew easier about talking with them, as we sat in the women’s house spinning or sewing. And much to my surprise, I would often find one or another lady come mysteriously to my side when the lord March spoke to me. I remembered, though, my own secret vow, and strove never to say a word of complaint against him, even as his coldness wore me down.

There came a day, however, in the height of the summer, when my vow failed me.

“Why do you weep?” said Bleuzuen.

“I don’t know,” I said, and set my embroidery to the side, that my tears would not fall upon it. “I wish — I wish I might — go out.” That was a mistake, for now I could not restrain my sobs. “In my father’s house, I used to ride in the country in the summer — lord March keeps me always within walls —”  
“That is true,” said Bleuzuen. “Derwa, go to find my brother, and bring him here.”

“No! don’t tell him,” I said unhappily. “He will be angry.”

“Maybe,” said Bleuzuen.

Very soon after, Derwa returned, and with her the lord March. As always, his face grew set when he looked at me, though I had by then reined in my weeping and wiped my face; certainly I could have been no nice sight, red-eyed and puffy.

“What is this, sister?” he said.

“You see how it is,” Bleuzuen said. “She grows sickly and pale, brother. She needs exercise.”

“There is the courtyard, and the revetments, where she might walk with you,” lord March said.

“I thought she might ride out, sometime, in this fine weather. She will come to no harm with Perren or perhaps some of the others.”

“That she will not,” lord March said, withering me under his eyes.

“Never mind,” I said. “It was a moment only. I am so sorry, my lord.”

“You wish to ride?” he said. “Then you will ride with me.”

“I thought you too occupied with other tasks, brother,” Bleuzuen said.

“Shall I not take some time for my wife? Tancogestla, are you ready? Get your cloak. I will have horses saddled.”

“But I —”

“Now,” he snapped, and went out, and I heard his voice retreating, calling for horses.

“Go!” said Bleuzuen. “I will fetch your cloak and bring it to you. Do not now displease him.”

“I displease him without trying,” I said, though quietly. Bleuzuen said nothing. I went out of the room, and out into the courtyard, and the lord March met me there.

Two men came from the stables then, leading horses, the lord March’s great grey and a smaller brown mare for me. Bleuzuen at the same moment ran out the door, my cloak in her arms, and she put it about my shoulders. The lord March lifted me up into the saddle and got onto his own mount and I followed him through the open gates.

He led me along a track towards the sea, and we rode some little time along the heights of the bluffs there. He did not slow or speak, so I was silent, keeping the mare well in pace that I might not fall behind. What I saw of his face was stiff as his neck as he rode. The only sound was of the waves below us, and the wind, and the dry thud of hooves upon the hard earth, and the mournful cries of seabirds, and there are some times when such noise is more deathly quiet than silence. I wished I had not wept. I wished I had never come here.

“We will go back,” he said at length, and we turned onto another track that led up a hill and then around, and just as we came in sight of Caer Duor, he pulled his horse up abruptly, so that I must also stop quickly behind him.

By the path there stood a tall grey stone, and by it two young trees, planted so close that they had grown almost into one.  
“Do you know what is buried there?” the lord March said.

“No, my lord,” I said. My voice came out faintly. He looked to me so dour when he spoke of burial, I found myself thinking of fearsome tales from winter’s nights, of brides who came upon all their husband’s previous wives murdered in some secret spot.

“My heart,” said he, flat and hard. He must then have nudged his knees into the grey horse’s flanks, for the great stallion turned about and him with it, and went down the path towards the castle. Hastily I urged the mare after him, and came to the gates as I had left, just behind him.

When we rode into the court he dismounted at once and helped me down. Then he left me there and went away swiftly into the hall. I washed the horse off my own hands and returned to the ladies’ bower and my embroidery. The ride had done me good, though I could have wished for better company.

After that, at intervals without warning on fine days, he would appear in the women’s room and order me to make ready. The horses would be saddled and waiting in the yard, and as I had the first time, I would follow his grimly silent back. We did not again ride by that one shore path, or past the great stone and the two trees.

Bleuzuen seemed pleased at the success of her stratagem. I did not have the heart to tell her that the lord March appeared to treat this time with me as yet another penance to put me through.

Some little time after that first ride, my brother Morfael came to Caer Duor. It seemed there was to be a great council in Gwynedd, and the lord March was called there, and so Morfael had offered to bring word that he might visit with me. It was kind in him, and truly, tears came into my eyes when first I saw him. I had not, I think, realised before that how sorrowfully lonesome all of my days in Kernow were and had been.

I went and begged my husband that he might let me go riding with Morfael, some day before he left again. I thought at first that the lord March would refuse me, but then abruptly he said, “Yes, of course you may ride out with your brother.”

It was not that day, for it rained, but the next was bright, and Morfael and I rode forth, he on his horse from the breed of Caer Guricon and me upon the brown mare.

I took him by the shore path, for I had not at all forgotten it since I first rode it. When we came to the great stone, I dismounted there. Morfael sat upon his horse and watched me. The trees were hazel trees, and there was an inscription cut clear into the rock.

“Drustans ic iacet Cunmori filius,” I read out carefully. “I did not know the lord March had a son.”

Morfael frowned a little, as though he were pained. “Nor did he have a son.”

“Then who has my lord March buried here, by the name of Drustan?” His heart.

Morfael winced. “Tancogestla, leave it.”

“No, I will not. I will know what this story is, and why my husband hates me.”

“Drustan was his cousin, and his foster-son. What do you mean, hates you?” His frown now was of anger. “Is he cruel to you? Why have you not spoken of this?”

I shook my head crossly. “Oh, he’s not cruel. He goes to great lengths, to hate me without being cruel. Get down from there. It’s time someone spoke plain to me.” Morfael sighed. “Now, Morfael.”

He did, and tethered the horses, and spread his cloak at the foot of the stone for me. We sat together, and Morfael began. “The lord March,” he said, “long ago brought his cousin Drustan, the grandson of his father’s sister Eliafel, out of Lothian in the North, when his own parents were killed in battle. That same battle was the one in which the lord March lost his hand. After that, March was as a father to Drustan, and as Drustan grew older he became March’s champion. For that March had lost his hand and could not fight,” he added.

“Lord March does use a sword,” I pointed out.

“So he does,” Morfael said. “But he was long learning to do so with his left hand.”

“Go on, then.”

“Drustan fought well and bravely for March, until one day he took a wound. And it may be the blade was poisoned, for he sickened of that wound. It lingered on him more than a year and a day, rotting and stinking in him, and no one who tried could heal him. So March sent him to Iwerddon, where there are still those who know the ancient ways of healing. But he did so in secrecy, so that no one knew who Drustan was, or that he was one of their enemies, for the Iwerydd have hated the Brytons always.

“And Drustan was healed there, and returned. Then the lord March would have made him his heir, only the chiefs of all the cantrefs of Kernow objected, since he was half Pictish, Drustan was. They bade March take a wife. So March sued for the hand of Ysellt the daughter of the king of Iwerddon, thinking thus to bring peace between our lands. The king agreed, on the condition that March fight and defeat the champion of Iwerddon.

“Drustan said that he would fight in March’s stead and win a bride for his foster father, and all agreed to that, and so Drustan went back again to Iwerddon, without stealth, and won all the combats set for him. He came back to Kernow with the lady Ysellt, and the lord March wed her, and he ... loved her.”

“Did you ever see her? Was she beautiful?” I asked.

“I did, then. I came here to Kernow with Elfan, more than once. She was very beautiful, yes. Perhaps the most beautiful woman I have — Tancogestla, I should not tell you this!”

I shook my head. “Morfael, I must know it. Anyway — what does it matter? She was beautiful, I am not — I know it.”

He put his hand a moment on my shoulder. “You are not ill-looking, sister, but it’s — . Not like Ysellt.” He dropped his hand, and plucked restlessly at the blades of grass between his feet. “And she was false. She loved Drustan, and he her. In fact, she had loved him long, for it was she and her mother who healed Drustan of his wound — they were then the greatest healers in Iwerddon, though they did not know then who he was. So for some time after the wedding Drustan and Ysellt deceived the lord March, meeting in secret, and might have gone on so longer, except that they grew careless. They met in the woods one day, and by ill chance March also went out hunting, and near rode over them from what I heard.”

The stone was warm against my back, but I shivered. “And did he — kill them?”

“He did not,” said Morfael dryly. “Though it seems he did at least get angry. And Drustan ran mad, with shame it may be. He was wild in the forest all that summer, and the lord March seeking him, and Ysellt mourning him, though she said it was her shame she mourned. Then when autumn came, the lord March again went out hunting, and he and his company pursued a stag all the day but did not catch it. Instead he found Drustan, naked and sick and filthy in the wood. So he brought him home.”

“I would not have,” I said.

“No. Nor I. Ysellt swore she would behave, but it was she that March had to call upon to heal his foster-son, none other had that great a craft. And of course, when he knew himself again, they were at it just as before, though I think March knew. For as soon as Drustan was well, the lord March sent him away to Brittany to rule over the land of Poher he holds there. Drustan went, but then he came back in stealth and stole Ysellt away. And March let them go.”

“He did?”

“He could not bear to kill them. He loved Drustan as a son, and loved Ysellt too.”

“So is she still _alive?_ Am I a false wife?”

“Wait. The next year, the lord March fell into war with the Iwerydd on account of Ysellt, for they said he had treated her dishonourably in failing to reclaim her. When Drustan heard of this, he took a company and came back to Kernow to fight for March. He was gravely hurt in that battle, and begged March to send for Ysellt that she might heal him again. But he did not know if Ysellt would come, or if she would fear to return to the land of her wronged husband. You understand, it sounds all strangely calm when I tell it, but from what I hear there was bitter anger among the three. Many even say that it was March himself who wounded Drustan, in revengefulness, and no man of Iwerddon.”

“Did he?”

“He did not,” said Morfael. “And I know that for certain. Any road, Drustan bade the shipmaster to fly a white flag if Ysellt returned with him, and a black if she did not — he could not bear to wait to know, you see. Then he waited in his bed, clinging to his very life and hoping for her.”

“Did she come back, then?”

“Well. The ship was seen by whoever was tending Drustan — and I do not know who that was, though I wonder if it may have been the lady Bleuzuen, who for all that she was his aunt, never cared for Drustan much, and certainly never for Ysellt. And he asked for the colour of the flag, and that person said that it was black. Whereupon Drustan died at once — of grief, they say. But of course it was not black, it was white, and when Ysellt found Drustan dead she slew herself with his own sword.”

“And then what?”

Morfael shrugged. “And then nothing. They are buried here, both of them, for March would not have them parted in death.”

“Her name is not upon the stone.”

“It is not. Ysellt may have been lovely, but she was not much beloved. Some say she used enchantment to draw Drustan to her, though you will not want to repeat that in the lord March’s hearing.”

I drew up my knees, and hugged them to me. “He loves her still.”

Morfael let out a breath. “Are you jealous?”

I managed a bit of a laugh. “No. But you knew this. And our father knew. Why sell me to a man who buried his heart under a stone with a woman who never loved him? He hates me because I’m not her, and now I know why he won’t let me out of the walls, and why he watches me as though I’d run off with all his men at once given half a chance.” I put my head upon my knees then. “If I’d known I would have refused when Father asked me.”

My brother swallowed. “We should have told you.”

“Yes! Yes, you should have.” Again, the treacherous tears were starting. I am very weak. “It doesn’t matter, does it? March must have a wife to give him an heir, and our father must have the bond of peace between him and Kernow. At least I need not wonder any more.”

“Are you very unhappy?” Morfael whispered.

“Yes,” I said to my knees.

“Do you — do you want to go away from here? To the north, or to a nunnery of the White Christ, maybe?”

“Are you mad?” I lifted my head to stare at him, wiping my eyes on my sleeves. “You would make war between March and our father for this? I told you. He’s not cruel to me, no one here is cruel to me, except that they think the worst of me.”

Morfael shrugged. “I wasn’t going to steal you off, only plead with the lord March to let you go. If, as you say, he hates you, and you are not yet with the child he needs —” He gave me a very strange look suddenly, and the quick blood rose in his cheeks. “You are not. Is he — that is, does he —” I felt my own face heat in sympathy.

“He does. As a man does his duty, never fear.” I could not help a little cringe of distaste, for all those nights, cold, so cold for all that there was another body briefly in them, my lord March making his visit to my inner room, then retiring without again as quickly as he might. “Besides. Tell me, how should I be happier in the northlands, or in a nunnery, and me dishonoured? I suppose if the lord March can do his duty then I can do as well.” I bit my lip. “Do not tell our parents.”

“Never fear,” Morfael said. “I will tell you — Father never thought — He thought, that as March had been so merciful to Ysellt, that he would be more kind than not.”

“He has spent all his kindness, I guess,” I said.

“I am sorry for that.”

We said little more, but mounted again and rode back to Caer Duor, and some days later Morfael left, and the lord March and a company out of Kernow with him, for this council.

But they were very late in returning, and as time passed we all watched anxiously, though none more so than his sister Bleuzuen.

It was near a week past the day it should have been before a group of riders bearing the Kernow colours were seen coming up to Caer Duor. Word ran through the house like fire, and we all went to the top of the revetments, and therefore all saw as they came nearer that the band was battle-marked, bloodied and weary, and moreover, that there were others with them who were not of our house — and that the lord March ap Meirchion was nowhere to be seen among them.

I stood there with other ladies of the house, and Bleuzuen now began to fret aloud. “But there are my brothers with them,” I said, wondering, for so it was, Morfael with a bandage on his arm, and Kelyn, who bore no wound that I could see but whose face was white and dreadful. And I ran down into the court to meet them, with Bleuzuen close behind me.

There was no loving brotherly greeting; very grim were both my brothers, and all those with them, too, for March ap Meirchion was not with them, he was a prisoner. At this, Bleuzuen set up a great wailing and lamentation.

“He is in the clutches of Bledri,” Morfael said, “who has, it seems, never forgotten certain past grudges. And it is only because of the lord March’s quick wit that we are not all prisoner there, or dead.”

“Tell me,” I said.

“Bledri, the cur of the serpent Gwrthefyr —” Kelyn turned aside, and spat upon the ground, “— sent an ear to our council, or so it seems. And this ear, having heard all he needed, crept off to spill his words at Bledri’s feet before the feasting ended. And so the cur heard all our plans, and heard, moreover, that the three sons of Llycat intended to ride away home unescorted —”

“For he has never forgiven our father, for supporting Cai the Tall to the kingship in his place,” Morfael interrupted,

“And besides, hoped to disrupt all our doings,” added Kelyn, “and so, Bledri put together a band — two dozens of men, no chances he, the coward —”

“And so came upon us riding alone the next day in the forest. We thought it was banditry —they had no colours, no standard, only a ragtag bunch, except they fought like warriors.”

“And we were hard pressed,” Kelyn said. “But it seemed perhaps the ear of Bledri was not merely listening, and might have had a loose mouth attached, for the lord March got wind of this ambush, and so he turned entirely aside and hastened after us. And he and the men of Kernow rode down upon this filthy lot just when we thought we’d leave our bones there under the trees.”

“Say one thing for them,” Morfael said, “they fought hard, but at last the men of Kernow scattered them, save that in the confusion and the shouting as they went off, they grabbed the lord March himself as a better prize, for he by some miserable chance took a blow and had been unhorsed some time since, though he did good work upon the ground.”

“And their horses were concealed in a place nearby, so that they were the swifter, and they rode away like fire in straw — a curse on their heads.”

“But he is not dead?” I said.

“Not dead,” said Morfael, “though he took a wound, as I said, I think in his thigh. And more, my sister.” He took my hand. “Elfan rode hard to our father’s house with some of the men of Kernow, to bring word, while we followed their trail, though we were too late to catch them before they went within walls. The viper’s dog condescended to send out a speaker to us.”

“Laughing at us,” Kelyn added bitterly, “from the ramparts. But he will take payment.”

“What is the price?” Bleuzuen cried. “We will pay it!”

“It is not the price,” Morfael said. “That is a rod of gold, three rods of silver, and three of copper, each the height of a man and the thickness of a thumb, for the head of Lord March ap Meirchion upon his living body, and a gold neck-ring for each of the four men of the lord Bledri’s who fell to Lord March’s sword.”

“That is shamefully low, for a king,” Bleuzuen began indignantly.

Morfael looked at her. “Wait,” he said. “That price must be paid by his wife, so says the lord Bledri. For that it was we her brothers lord March interfered to help. He demands that my sister Tancogestla come and give him the ransom with her own hands, in his house, with only such a company as will be needed to ensure her safety.” He caught my shoulders suddenly, and only then did I realise that I had swayed upon my feet as a kind of white brightness fell over his face.

Bleuzuen stared at us. And now the lord March’s second in command, Perren, said, “We cannot accept it. We must try to win back the lord March by force of arms, even if Bledri kills him and we only bury him. Bledri will want more of the lady queen than rods of gold.”

Bleuzuen opened her mouth and closed it again. I thought she would protest, but instead, her head bowed and she turned away. I recalled that I had heard she lost both husband and child in battle. And now her brother.

“I am sorry, my lady,” Perren said, and to my surprise he said it not to Bleuzuen, but to me.

“No...” I said, “no. But you — should rest, and eat, and care for the horses.” Morfael was still looking at me, and I thought that the lord March would not be prisoner if he had left my brothers to their fate. “And when you are done that — Morfael, Kelyn, Perren — will you speak with me, in the lord March’s upper room?”

Now they were all looking at me. I wished I could sink into the ground, but of course I could not.

“Will you?” I repeated.

“We will, sister,” Kelyn said.

And I went straightaway to that room, and there walked restlessly till they came, looking at the couch where my lord slept of nights, and at all the litter of the daily matters of Kernow there, maps and my lord March’s accounts, and the page still lying upon the table, written over in his crabbed and smeared wrong-handed script. If Bledri killed him, I might go back to my father’s house. Or perhaps I would then be sought after as a bride, who widowed or not brought with her half the riches of Kernow. In that case, I might even choose my husband. And I might call upon my brothers to defend me.

Soon enough they came, the three of them, clean and rid of their bloodied and filthy garments, and looking much the better for it.

“You say he cannot be taken back, should you ride out against Bledri?” I asked them.

“Bledri says he will kill March out of hand, should Kernow or the sons of Llycat ride against him. And if the lords assemble in force, then that will be an aggression that his master will look to, and then we will have war among all the portions of Prydein. Gwrthefyr is waiting for just such a chance,” Morfael said.

Kelyn did not waste time. “Sister, you’re not thinking of doing this thing?”

“Yes,” I said, for I had quite decided, in my time alone there. “We owe him a blood-debt now, all of you and me too. And he is the lord of all Kernow and beloved of his people, so that it will be to our advantage.”

“Except yours,” said Morfael, who was sometimes too blunt. Perren gave him a sharp glance, which Morfael returned, and with increase. “It is no secret that the lord March has treated my sister with a disregard just this side of insult, without cause,” Morfael said. “And that she has borne this with patience, unhappy though she is.”

Perren shifted uncomfortably. “He had some cause,” he said.

“March is married to his fears!” Morfael shouted. “My sister is no woman of bush and brake! He-”

“Morfael!” I said. My eyes filled with tears of angry humiliation, my face heated like a stone in a fire.

Like me, Morfael colours easily, and the blush flared across his face. “I am sorry, Tancogestla,” he said, near inaudibly.

“This is not the time, brother. Listen now. We are going to recover the lord March.”

Morfael shook his head. “No. This is madness, and I cannot allow it. How can I tell our mother and father that I let you go off, with gold and your own treasure, to such a wicked man as Bledri?”

“You can tell me nothing, Morfael, nor you, Kelyn, nor even our father. I belong to the lord March now, remember? And he is not here either, to tell me what I may or may not do, and I say we will pay this ransom and we will get him back to Kernow.”

“And if you yourself are taken captive?” Perren said.

I cast him a bitter glance. “What difference does it make? He may marry another lady and be glad of her if he wills. And Bledri will not kill me, he will have other plans, as you know full well. I will send a message to our father, tell him that I do this of my own will and for the sake of my brothers, and likewise leave a message for the lord March, that I may not start another war. But I don’t mean to be taken if I can help it.”

“What on earth are you thinking, then?” Kelyn demanded. “Bledri is a warleader, his house is a well-defended stronghold, and though we might take it by force of arms given luck and a fortunate wind, he will surely kill March if we try, for so he swore.”

My certainty evaporated. “I have — a notion,” I said. I thought for a bit. “We will need Gwylin Bard,” I began.

We went forth late the next day, it having taken so long to assemble the payment. We were not as Bledri had demanded; we were a full company, for my brothers had convinced me of the unwisdom of going all the distance so. It was for the best.

Three days it took us to come within the reach of the lands of din Bleiddin. And there, not quite another day’s ride away, I parted from my brothers.  
With me now were only four men of the lord March’s household, once warriors, now white-haired. It was a dank grey day, veils of mist threading through the wood, and I worried, seeing secret scouts of Bledri’s in every bush. But Aircol, of my little honour guard, was himself an old master of tracking, and he assured me it was not so and that the woods were empty of any but us.

Nearer to din Bleiddin, by an old milestone half buried in leafy overgrowth, we stopped again, and there I dressed from my pack, in my green silk wedding gown and my golden neckpiece and bracelets. I combed and arranged my hair as best I could, and covered the whole again in my cloak of plain wool. This too was my brothers’ idea, that I go into that place as nothing less than a queen of Kernow. I did not know whether that was wise or not; it seemed to me that it might be one hand or the other.

We went on, into the gathering cold fog. A dew of moisture lay on all the leaves, and gathered on the metal gear of the horses, and on my golden bracelets. Then at last the bulk of din Bleiddin, a black hill in the dusk, loomed before us, and we rode up to the gates. They were shut, and no one hailed us from the tower.

Reu went up to them, and hammered on them with the butt of his spear. “Hail the house,” he shouted.

“Who comes?” said a voice from above, and I put back my cloak and rode forth.

“This is the lady Tancogestla ferch Llycat wreic March,” Reu said. “Tell the lord Bledri she is here as he decreed to claim her lord.”

There was a pause. I heard a muttering of talk above. Then the gates opened. Shaking in every bone, I went in, and with me, their white heads held high, the four men guarding me.

We dismounted, and our horses were taken from us to the stables. A man of Bledri’s house brought us into the hall, and Bledri himself waited for me there.

He bowed, and smiled at me. An open-featured, pleasant face he had, quite at odds with his reputation as the dog of Din Bleiddin, but still I did not much like his smile.

“Welcome, my lady Tancogestla,” he said. “Truly, I did not look for you to come.” He advanced upon me, too close, and I steeled myself to smile and smile and not to flinch away.

“Why should I not?” I said. “An exchange of payment — it is a simple thing, no?”

“To be sure, to be sure. I hope you will not delay it, however. I fear the lord March ap Meirchion may be worth... rather less, rather soon.” My heart sank in me. Kelyn, Perren, Morfael — they had been right and I wrong, I had risked myself, and worse, those with me, for a man as good as dead. I breathed into my belly.

“Lord Bledri, it is a foolish man who would abuse the merchandise he hopes to sell, surely?”

Bledri chuckled. “Ah, not I, not I. It was his own doing — I took possession in a damaged condition. His lordship is perhaps a little old for such hard exercise.”

“Well,” said I, “I am certain you will not object if I insist on seeing the goods before payment.”

“So coldhearted a woman,” he said, looking very closely into my face, which I did not care for. “As you like. I don’t wish to delay the joyous reunion longer than I must. Let me show you our goods. Remember, his condition is no fault of mine. I have given him every care I would have shown one of my own men.”

Bledri himself accompanied me, and two hard-faced fighters whose eyes upon me I liked even less than their master’s, and behind them Reu and Aircol, Iddic and Dofran. We went into the heart of Din Bleiddin. I did not think Bledri’s assertion altogether truthful, unless he also was accustomed to keep his wounded in stone-walled outbuildings, behind doors well locked.

But indeed when the door was opened, by the lamp Bledri held I saw the lord March in a clean and decent bed. “Go on,” said Bledri, smiling still and handing me the lamp. “Do not fear. Would I lock you in, knowing that your people watch?”

I did so, but as my eyes began to pierce the dimness in that room, I felt still more dubious; the lord March, on our entrance, had begun to toss and moan upon the mattress, and was clearly fevered. I had rather relied upon him, though wounded, to be otherwise useful, and my difficult task would be impossible were he raving.

As he was. “I will not,” he muttered, his eyes near closed in his hot face. “I will not, Bledri.”

“It is not Bledri,” I said, leaning over him that he might see my face, “it is Tancogestla.”

He gasped, and rolled his head back, opened his eyes, and they focussed on me sharply, then closed again. “No... she would not... would not come. She knows what you’re about.” Ice ran into my blood at what he said. But I now wondered — hoped — if perhaps he had given himself over to his delirium, the better to frustrate Bledri.

I wiped at the sweat on his face. He was certainly genuinely fevered, though perhaps not to a deadly degree. My hands were cold. I couldn’t tell.

“Let me see what we have here,” I said.

“Not worth it,” he mumbled, “not worth the price. A little wound.” He tossed again. I lifted the coverings, and found him in only his shirt, the reason clear in the sodden bandage high upon his thigh. As I touched it, he groaned and fussed, but I could not help but notice that his moving was largely confined to his head and breast, and he left the leg steady for me.

It was not good. It was no great wound, but deep, and there was poison in it, it was inflamed, hot and red and oozing pus. It seemed ill chance, or perhaps design on Bledri’s part, that though it had been kept more or less clean and bound no one with any healing craft had been at it.  
I bound it up again and drew up the blankets, and under them for a moment the lord March’s hand circled my wrist hard and loosed me. “Well,” I said for Bledri, “it seems the merchandise is, as you say, in a damaged state.”

“The price is not negotiable,” said the smiling man in the doorway.

March was muttering again, flailing. I thought him overdoing it a little. “I have come prepared to pay the price,” I said, “but there will be conditions.”

“Too... too many. Too high,” muttered March.

“Are you in a position to set the conditions, then?” asked Bledri. “The payment, surely, is already here.”

I ignored the doubled meaning. “I thought it better to leave the treasure without the house,” I said. “But it is safely hid, in a place I alone have marked.”

 _“Have_ you?” said Bledri, and for the first time, I saw a flare of something unexpected in his smooth handsome face. I wondered if I had been wise to show myself more than the simple woman he thought me.

“I have. You and I and the lord March and all with me will go out, and I will then hand it over to you.”

“A trick that might be, and you with a battle-company from Kernow to kill me outside the walls. But then, surely Kernow will not risk defeat for their broken king. And the Brenin Gwrthefyr might well consider that an act of war.”

“Perhaps.” I bent my head, did my best to look little, insignificant. “I never did speak of war, Lord Bledri. But perhaps you know of my three brothers?”

“Your brothers,” Bledri said, “are not here.”

“Of course not, as you instructed. But they know what I am about, and maybe are even not so far away. I could not answer for them, Lord Bledri, or for their friends, should I or the lord March ap Meirchion come to harm. But at the same time, if we come to an agreement here, I swear they will make no attack upon you.”

“Be that as it may, there will be no releasing in advance of the payment. You and I will ride forth, my lady Tancogestla, and when I know that you have brought me all I demanded, then you shall come back and claim your lord.”

“But how shall I know, lord Bledri, that with your hand both upon the payment and upon my lord, that you will release either?”

He came further in, smiling at me again. “So untrusting. I am thinking that is not a nice thing in a wife. But if it will ease your mind, I swear to you, that when once you have paid me the fee, I will release the lord March ap Meirchion and further, make no act of violence or aggression upon him concerning this matter.”

“Not only you, but all your household and your people, lord Bledri,” I said. “And the safe conduct will include these, his attendants I have brought.”

The lord Bledri looked back at them, those proud old men, and laughed contemptuously. “A guard fit for such a king,” he said. “He may have them.”

The lord March, who had not ceased his mumbling, suddenly groaned aloud. “And you,” I thought he said.

“My word binds us all. We have an agreement, then, and I bind you to it,” Bledri said, with an arrogant look. I remembered suddenly what I had omitted, and of which my lord had sought to remind me, and felt sick.

“Are we agreed? Give me your hand on it, my lady, or I withdraw my offer.”

Despairing, I held out my hand. “We are agreed,” I said. And he took my hand and crushed it in his, and followed that with an insinuating caress like a snake’s tongue down my palm.

“Then let us make the exchange,” I said.

“Surely you will not be dragging me about the country in the dark, my lady,” said Bledri, laughing. “Too late it is for such frolics. You will do me the honour, you and your escort, of accepting the hospitality of the house this night. It will be my pleasure to host so queenly a lady at my table.”

I looked at the shadows gathered about the door. He was right, I would not be able to find the spot in the dark. “That is graciously offered,” I said. “Very well then, we will stay here the night, and as early as may be tomorrow, we will do the thing.”

“I will have my men show you and your people to the guesthouse,” Bledri said, “and when you are refreshed, I will look forward to your arrival in my hall.”

I nodded, thinking furiously, and followed Bledri out of there.

“Cur indeed! Escort for a broken king!” said Aircol, the instant the door of the guesthouse was shut and we in it alone. There was a red flush in his cheeks, and a battle-light in his eye.

“Hush!” said I. “Who knows who hears?” It was strange, now away from the lord Bledri and his pack, I felt the hopeless terror lie far heavier upon me. “No queen, nor king either, had finer escort, and this I promise you. You are the strength behind me in this place. Now...” I shivered, “I suppose we must go perform for the lord in his hall.”

Iddic nodded at me. “Let us then, lady,” he said. “You are doing the thing nobly. Do not falter now.”

I took a breath, let it shaking out, straightened the cold weight of the gold collar about my throat. “Let us go,” I agreed, and with Iddic on my left side and Aircol on my right, and the others at my back, we went out and across the open yard to the open firelit doors of Bledri’s hall.

A bard played, a little distance behind Bledri’s seat; I let my eye go past him, and he the same to me. Gwylin looked much different, his fair hair and brows stained dark with oak-gall.

Bledri rose and bowed to me. “I have kept the best seat for you,” he said, and indicated a couch set near to his. I sat down upon it, my four men ringed behind me.

If I had thought those long nights at the lord March’s side in Caer Duor hard, they were as nothing to this feast with the lord of din Bleiddin. I sat and ate and complimented everything, the food and the fineness of the house.

“Yes,” Bledri said, smiling in his nasty way, as though his lips were smeared with butter, “it must all be far more pleasant than you are used to, down in Kernow.”

“I do not know that I have feasted better,” I said, though the lie fell hard off my tongue. “It is a king’s house you keep here, lord Bledri. And your bard, he is a very excellent one,” I added, and that was no lie, for I have rarely heard Gwylin in more form, both his playing and his voice, as he rendered one of the great songs in a way that would have done him credit on Ynys Mon.

“He is not mine,” Bledri said, “only a wandering bard stopped here, though I think I may take him into my service, for as you say his playing is remarkable. But there, if you are pleased with him, lady Tancogestla, you may give to him the reward of his harping,” and to my delight he pulled off one of the several gold rings he wore about his arm and put it in my hand.

I walked over. Gwylin’s fingers did not cease to move along the strings of his harp.

“The lord of the house bids me give you this, and praises your playing,” I said. “And I as well honour you for it.”

“That is gracious in you, my lady,” Gwylin said, and I came near enough to give him the bracelet.

“Come if you may, and play for me some time soon,” I said.

“I will do that as soon as might be,” Gwylin answered, “past all obstacles.”

“Good, then,” said I. “We will look forward to it.” And he took the ring from me, and I returned to my seat.

It was a long and a painful time before at last we could escape away from Bledri’s household, each one of whom appeared determined to down as much wine as he might in the shortest possible time. The hall grew louder and more rowdy; Gwylin’s music could no longer be heard above the din and I myself could hardly hear my own voice. “It has been a long journey here,” I said. “By your leave, lord Bledri, I and my escort will retire.”

He took my hand in his own, which was hot and moist now. “I would sooner you stay,” he said, “but I will grant you that. Go and rest then. I must look forward to seeing you in the morning.”

Grant me that it be for the last time ever in my lifetime, I thought. “Bid you good night,” I said, and we went away again, two men beside me and two behind.

Once within the illusionary safety of the guesthouse, I said, “Do one of you guard the door, all the night. But Gwylin Bard will come if he can, so do not kill him by mistake, but wake me when he does.”

It was a very considerable time later, and I even did drowse a little bit, before Reu came and shook me wakeful. “He is here,” he whispered.  
I wrapped my cloak around me and went to where Gwylin waited.

“I am very glad to see you, Gwylin,” I said.

“Ah!” he whispered, “I thought I never would escape their eyes! I have had to crawl on my belly to get here, my lady,” and he laughed, silently. “But I have by no craft been able to speak with the lord March; he is well guarded, and no gaps or windows where he is kept either.”

“So I have seen. But it seems that all will be well; Bledri will take his payment first, but I have agreed to that, and then he is sworn to release us.”

Gwylin looked alarmed. “That is it, is it?”

“What is what?”

“Lady, since you left the lord Bledri has been boasting of how he will have a queen for his court in trade for a king. He does not mean to let you go, and if he has the payment he may do so without being foresworn.”

I put my head in my hands. My error had been seen, then – or more likely, Bledri did not care, and had intended this all along. What, then?

“Gwylin, I have a great request of you.”

“Ask it, and I will do it,” he said eagerly.

“No, this is a wild plan, and not only may it fail, but it may end in your death, so you must hear me before you answer.”

He took both my hands in his. “I have said my word,” he said. “Whatever it is, I will do it, for your sake and for the sake of my lord March.”

“Very well,” I said unhappily. And we spoke in whispers for some time after. And then Dofran and Iddic got him out of the house again. I hoped he would not need to crawl again back to the hall.

For all the wine he had drunk the night before, and that only while I had seen him, Bledri was at my door early the next morning, looking fresh and as full of smug delight as ever. And I, too, was wide awake and dressed. I had forced myself at least to rest until dawn, for I needed every wit I had, but I so feared to be caught unawares by the lord Bledri that nothing could keep me abed once the first light of day showed.

“If you are ready, my lady Tancogestla, then let us go forth,” he said.

And we rode out, he and I and my four, and eight of his, to the milestone. A little way away I peeled back the turf and took out a long bundle wrapped in linen, and Bledri opened it and chuckled with delight at the gold, stroking the bar and the neck-rings with gloating fingers. “Well, you have kept your promise, so I must keep mine. Let us go release the lord March from his bondage.”

We went back then, me searching the sky above din Bleiddin, but I saw nothing. Through the gates we went again, and dismounted, and as soon as we did, Bledri made a gesture to his men, and they seized mine with speed. Aircol did get one blow with his spear that left one man bleeding, but then another knocked the spear from his hand and him to the ground. And Bledri gripped my arms.

“You,” he said, “will stay. The terms are for the lord March ap Meirchion. And safe conduct for these,” he added, nodding at my four, standing furiously held.

I was lost, and Gwylin had failed. I dropped my head and dragged my feet as Bledri began to haul me across the yard.

And then there came shouting, and running, and terrified cries of men and women and beasts, and I looked up. A wooden building hard by Bledri’s stables had seemingly leapt alight in a single moment, blazing to the sky. Bledri gave an astonished yell, and cursed mightily. “Shut the gate!” he shouted, and hurled me aside so violently I fell to the ground.  And he ran across the yard, shouting further as he went, though most of it went unheeded in the chaos, everyone pelting here and there, though those who had been with Bledri did do his bidding and ram the gate closed before charging to the fire like everyone else.

Scarcely daring to believe my luck, I picked myself up, glanced over at the men with me, and with a single thought, we ran to that outbuilding where the lord March was prisoned. That was why Gwylin and I had decided he would set a fire near the stables, if it might be possible, for they were on the other side of the ring.

There was still one of Bledri’s men guarding the door. But we were five, and four of us could still fight, old though they might be, and they struck him down with scarcely a sound, as I do not think he saw us come round the side.

Then I stopped, seeing the lock, and groaned in despair. Of course, the key would be on Bledri’s belt. And it was a heavy thing; maybe even smith’s tools would be needed for it. Nor were there windows in this hut.

But Dofran took his spear, and wedged it into the hinge side of the door, and seeing that, Aircol likewise. They cracked it from the frame, breaking the spears in the doing, and we rushed in.

The lord March leapt recklessly from the bed and nearly fell, and I took his weight upon my shoulder as Reu did the same from the other side. I saw that he had indeed listened yesterday, for he had put on his bracae and shoes.

“Can you walk, my lord?” I asked him.

“Not well at all, clearly,” he said wryly. And then, to our four noble-hearted old warriors, “Carry me, anything, but make haste,” and they did, and we ran to the gates, and the lord March leaned upon Reu’s spear while we worked them open. Almost they were wide enough to let us out, when there was an incoherent bellow of words behind us, and I wheeled round to find Bledri, panting and snarling with rage, his sword in his hand, racing to us with two of his men behind.

The lord March answered, “You have your payment, and you will have nothing more of mine,” and he took a long step that brought him to my side, caught himself clumsily and heavily upon me with his right arm, and braced the spear in his left hand.

Bledri shouted, but none more came to him; the fire was still raging, and great gouts of black burned wood and ash falling down all around us.  
But Reu and Aircol, Iddic and Dofran had not stopped when I did, and they still widened the gates, till through them burst my brothers and the company of Kernow, who had seen the fire from their watch point but not known its cause, so that they feared for our lives. And when they saw what went on, Bledri with his sword drawn descending on us, there was a hiss like a nest of adders as every blade of theirs leapt from its sheath.

And Bledri turned tail and ran, and his men likewise, shouting now, “Betrayal! Treason! Attack!”

The lord March got upon his own horse, which had been brought riderless for him in our company, while the rest of us flung ourselves doubled as we might; Kelyn near dragged my arm out of my shoulder-joint hauling me over his saddle. There was no hope of our horses, left untethered and now scattered who knew where by fire and chaos. And we galloped wildly out the gate and down the road.

It seemed the lord Bledri had found some others to take his cause after all; a couple of spears followed us off the rampart as we went, but they fell far short and we did not heed them.

As we reached the wood, though, I suddenly cried out, “Gwylin Bard! He is still there!”

“Never mind,” Kelyn gasped behind me, “he is a fox like all bards, he will make his way clear, and we cannot stop.” And we rode on, in a wild frenzy of haste, and the tears on my cheeks dried in the wind of that riding.

We were not long on the road, though, before March ap Meirchion was fevered in earnest, and the wound dreadfully swollen and suppurating. I was glad that at least he had held himself together until we were out of that sty of Bleiddin. But now I wondered if we could come even as far as Dingerrin with the man alive.

In his delirium, he berated me when I tended him. First, it was only reproaches for the risk I had taken, over and over; then he forgot me and very bitterly recriminated against the lost Ysellt and his foster-son, until I understood only too well his loathing of me, and maybe of all women, for clearly he felt himself much wronged in the case.

But never mind that. We rode with all the swiftness we could muster, and Elfan bore March before him in the saddle, for he could no longer sit his horse, and whenever we briefly stopped, I washed the wound and searched the hedgerows thereabout for healing plants, wishing I had been more attentive when I helped my mother tend wounded men. I found some but not enough, and not the ones I hoped for, and I could not tell with the ceaseless irritation of the riding whether they did any good.

We reached Dingerrin in three days, and that was considered a great wonder, with a wounded man. The lord Gerren gave the lord March the finest room in the house to himself, and there I set myself to save him.

There was irony in that, and irony too that I was so admired for the deed, for truly, I dreaded setting foot in that room, and the lord March cursing me or pleading with me by another name.

Gerren’s lady Enid aided me, and so I was compelled to keep my thoughts silent. Together, we put our hands on the plants my mother particularly favoured in healing poisoned wounds, and other things that Enid knew, and I soaked bandages in black brews, and forced foul things down his throat.

Even in the height of his fevered rages, he never did offer any violence to me.

I knew there was a great spate of messengers, to and from Din Bleiddin, and also from the Brenin Gwrthefyr, coiled like a serpent in Dyfed, but I left them to the lord Gerren and to my brothers. Two days after we arrived, Gwylin Bard appeared at the gates of Dingerrin on a stolen horse, and when he came before me I was so glad to see him alive I embraced him like a brother. After that, he came to play the harp there sometimes, while I sat with his unmoving lord, and he told me bits of what he heard.

Then came one morning, perhaps a week after we came to Dingerrin, as I began to feel the heavy weight of despair upon me, that I was woken from my uneasy sleep on the pallet next to the bed by a hoarse voice addressing me.

I rose. His eyes were open and clear, glass-green.

“Where is this?” he said.

“It is Dingerrin,” I said. I felt of his head and his hands, and they were near as cool as my own. I lifted the covers and the bandages to look at the wound, an intimate thing. I had not noticed when he was nothing more than burning meat. But now, with him back in his head and judging me, I felt myself blushing. Fool! I was wedded to him, he had been in my bed.

The heat and the swelling seemed gone. “I must clean this,” I said, and went out for water, and for more of my nasty brews, of which I kept now a stock in covered pots. I returned, and washed it out, a painful thing that he bore patiently. The old matter there came clean away, and I thought even the flesh under it looked to be beginning its healing.

“Another fortnight, and you will be ready to go back to Caer Duor, maybe,” I said. He said nothing. I took the bowl of bloodied water and the soiled cloths, and went out to dispose of them. I went to the kitchens with a hopeful thought and got broth and wine and bread.

He took some of the broth and the wine, and thanked me for it even, and I ate the bread. And then he lay down again, and I sat in the chair by the window and spun, for lack of anything better to do. But any time I glanced up from the wool and the spindle I found him looking at me bleakly.  
Some while later, the lady Enid came to the room as she usually did, to sit with him a while and let me go out. She was very glad to find her cousin so much recovered, and praised me till I blushed.

“Now,” she said, “go and take some air, poor child. I will see to it that March does not die off while you’re gone, never fear. Ah! well done, no man could fail to heal, with such care. March, you do not know how this girl has tended you. Off now! go on, Tancogestla.”

I fled, both the room and the lord March’s hollow and haunted face, and walked about the walls of Dingerrin in the wind for some time.  
When I returned, it was like a festival in there; Gwylin Bard playing the harp, and the lady Enid talking merrily, and the lord Gerren Llyngesoc her husband there too. But as soon as I came, Enid gathered everyone up and chased them out with swift dispatch. “We will have him back in a worse case, if we tire him so,” she said. “Tancogestla, how much better you look. You were growing paler than he is. Here, out.” She bundled her ever-present work, embroidery today, into her basket, and the lord Gerren took it from her with a fond look.

“There,” she said. “I will have something to eat sent to you.” And she kissed my cheek and went out, and left me there alone again with the lord March, who though he had been conversing with the lord Gerren only moments ago, was now once more notably silent.

I sat again in the chair, at a loss. He moved uncomfortably in the bed.

“Tancogestla, will you come and speak with me?” he said quietly. I frowned and rose and went to the bedside.

He looked at me now with that straight gaze I dreaded. “Why would you take such a mad chance to save me?” he said.  
I looked him straight back. “For my brothers, my lord. I owed you that debt.”

He gave a harsh short laugh like a raven’s croak.

“There is water here. You should drink something more,” I said, and handed him the cup. He drank deeply and gave it back to me. His face was marked by the sickness that had been on him, all the bones showing under a grizzled growth of beard. And his close-cropped hair was growing out too, dark curls only a little steeled with grey.

“I am lucky in that you are an honourable woman,” he said. “They will call you Tancogestla of the Impossible Deed. That was bravely done, to save a husband you could have little interest in retrieving.”

I bit my lip and thought, but there did not seem to be any good answer for that, so I glanced away.

“Do you fear me, Tancogestla?” he asked then.

“Not so much... any more, my lord,” I said.

He shifted in the bed, and closed his mouth upon some small sound.

“Does your wound pain you, my lord?”

“Not overly,” he said. There was a short and uncomfortable silence between us then. I turned the cup in my hands, then set it down.

“Would you wish, perhaps, when this is done with, to go with your brothers to your father’s house?” he said. “Or I might shake the cloak between us, and you marry a man of your choosing.”

I stared at him in sheer disbelief, while hot shame ran through me and spiked my eyes with tears. “Why,” I said, too cut at last to be tactful, “do you hate me, my lord? Have I not been dutiful to you? I am sorry that I am not your Ysellt, but surely you will not dishonour me? Why not send me to the Saes in my shift, then, if you wish to be rid of me?”

He gaped at me. “Hate you?” he said. “How hate you, to set you free of me, a one-handed old man who’s treated you shamefully enough? But certainly I am grateful, and very fortunate, that I did not marry another Ysellt. Or I should be dead even now.” I mopped a towel across my eyes, not caring what he thought.

He sighed.

“So you would sooner return to Kernow, and be unhappy?”

“As you wish, my lord.”

“When I first saw you...” he said. He fretted his hand upon the blanket, gazing at it. “When I first saw you, you rode before your brother, both of you wild and laughing as a pair of pisguis. Then you took one look at me and all the joy went out of your face. I do not think I have ever seen you laugh since.”

“You have not tried to make me laugh, my lord.”

“No,” he said. Again, a thick silence fell between us.

“I married a ghost out of my head, and not the wife I was sent,” he said. He took an uncomfortable breath. “I am sorry. I am deeply sorry, that I dishonoured you with mistrust and jealousy. I first imagined... that if I once weakened towards you, you would use that against me. And then I saw myself loathesome in your eyes, and so I became.”

“It does not matter, my lord.”

“It does. I hope you may one day forgive me for it.” He paused. “Are you quite certain that you do not wish to be free of me? I swear, I will set my name to it, and see that you do not suffer for it.”

I considered. I considered it seriously. And yet... I thought of, maybe, wedding a man who revered me, whoever he might be. I thought of, maybe, wedding a man who disliked me, and had not even the generosity of March ap Meirchion, to keep it barely courteous. I thought of not wedding again, of living in my father’s house, set aside and fading, until I grew old. I thought of all the things he had said, sorrowful and angry in fever, to a lady who was dead, and discovered something, which I spoke aloud. “I forgive you already, my lord. But do you then want me in your house?”

“How many times must a man spurn a treasure, before he is worse than a fool? Yes,” he said, “yes, if you will come. I did not think to hope,” he added slowly, “that you would.”

“If I — if I choose to come back with you, might you then trust me a little?”

A little unsteadily, he said, “How should I not, now?”

“Use, and habit, my lord?” I said, and he smiled faintly, and I thought, he has never much smiled at me, either.

“If you choose to come back to my house — do you know my name, Tancogestla?”

“March,” I said in blank surprise.

“If I won’t lord it over you, you need not call me always ‘my lord’.”

I could not help it, a breath of laughter escaped me, and he smiled again, the lines of his face quite easing and changing.

“I do not expect you to love me —”

“Or you me, my l— March,” I said, wanting again to laugh.

“But if you will allow, I will try to make you like me,” he finished.

I looked into his face, then to the foot of the bed, then at his face again. I sat down beside him, took his left hand in my right hand, and the scarred stump of his right arm in my left hand. “Not impossible, that,” I said.


End file.
